In two regions where tourism is of considerable economic importance, eastern Asia and the Pacific, there have been remarkably few studies of the impacts of tourism in rural areas. Moreover, the shift towards ecotourism, touted as a more environmentally benign form of tourism, has extended the reach of tourism into more remote and fragile environments. This shift has drawn more local people in rural and remote areas into a partly tourism economy, involving them as participants in the tourist industry. Yet little is known about who have been the beneficiaries of these developments.

This book presents new research on the capacity of big cities to generate new tourism areas as visitors discover and help create new urban experiences off the beaten track. It examines similarities and differences in these processes in a group of established world cities located in the global circuits of tourism. The cities featured are Berlin, New York, London, Paris, and Sydney.

In these cities experienced city visitors are contributing to the 'discovery' of new places to visit. Many neighbourhoods close to the historic centre and to traditional attractions offer the mix...

As one of the world's largest industries, tourism carries with it significant social, environmental, economic and political impacts. Although tourism can provide significant economic benefits for some destinations, the image of tourism as a benign and environmentally friendly industry has often been challenged. There is a clear and growing body of evidence that suggests that the effects of tourism development are far more complex than policy-makers usually suggest and that the impacts of tourism occur not just at the destination but at all stages of a tourist's trip. Furthermore, tourism...

The world's polar regions are attracting more interest than ever before. Once regarded as barren, inhospitable places where only explorers go, the north and south polar regions have been transformed into high profile tourism destinations, increasingly visited by cruise ships as well as becoming accessible with direct flights. Tourism is seen as one of the few economic opportunities in these regions but at the same time the polar regions are being opened up to tourism development they are being affected by a number of new factors that are interconnected to travel and tourism. Climate...

Political economy, in its various guises and transfigurations, is a research philosophy that presents both social commentary and theoretical progress and is concerned with a number of different topics: politics, regulation and governance, production systems, social relations, inequality and development amongst many others. As a critical theory, political economy seeks to provide an understanding of societies - and of the structures and social relations that form them - in order to evoke social change toward more equitable conditions.

Despite the early influence of critical...

Over the last two decades, tourism has become firmly established as a recognized field of study and the focus of extensive academic research. There has been continual expansion in the provision of taught programmes at undergraduate and postgraduate level, dramatic developments in the tourism literature and a growing community of tourism academics. Despite this explosion in the study of tourism, however, it is still struggling to achieve wider academic legitimacy, it remains to some extent divorced from the industry upon which it is focuses and, even within its academic ranks, there remains...

The inherent mobility of tourists and consequent relative ephemerality of contact between the visitor and the visited tourism phenomenon have specific characteristics that challenge the usual fieldwork practices of the social and physical sciences. Such conditions create specific concerns for the tourism researcher in terms of their positionality, relationality, accessibility, ethics, reflexivity, and methodological appropriateness.

Fieldwork in Tourism is the first book to focus on this extremely significant component of contemporary tourist research and provides hands on...

Shifting global consumption patterns, tastes and attitudes towards food, leisure, travel and place have opened new opportunities for rural producers in the form of agritourism, ecotourism, wine, food and rural tourism and specialized niche market agricultural production for tourism. Agriculture is one of the oldest and most basic parts of the global economy, while tourism is one of the newest and most rapidly spreading. In the face of current problems of climate change, rising food prices, poverty and a global financial crisis, linkages between agriculture and tourism may provide the basis...